ABSTRACT
This chapter provides more detail on typical motivators for struggling youth and introduces the change plan worksheet (CPW). The CPW is a useful tool to discover how ready youth are to make change. As William Miller and Rollnick assert in their research on motivational interviewing (MI), if a problem is not recognized or "owned" by the client (youth), there is no use working on it. To reiterate, MI is a client-centered, directive method for enhancing intrinsic motivation to change by exploring and resolving ambivalence, and was developed approximately 20 years ago by Miller to primarily treat problem drinking. The goal of MI is to enhance readiness for change through empowered exploration of what the youth wants to work on. MI is accomplished by eliciting the youth's own intrinsic motivations for change, through collaboration, support, empathy, and honoring client autonomy, and through helping youth understand their own motivations.
